I
(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINESE LOANS AND CONCESSIONS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
F 1435/181/10]
No. 1.
(No. 526.) Sir.
Earl Curzon to Sir A. Geddes (Washington).
559
[April 20.]
SECTION 1.
Foreign Office, April 20, 1921.
I ASKED the Americau Chargé d'Affaires, Mr. Butler Wright, to come to the Foreign Office on the 18th instant in order that I might hand to him my reply to the American memorandum of the 17th February, concerning the dispute which had arisen between our two Governments with regard to concessions for wireless telegraphy in China.
I told Mr. Wright that I had invited him to attend because I desired to accompany the presentation of the reply with one or two observations, which I thought had better be delivered orally rather than in writing.
In the first place, I said that I had been a little surprised at the tone and language of the note to which His Majesty's Government were now replying. This was a dispute in which different views of the situation were entertained by the two Governments, and in which, as our reply, when Mr. Wright bad read it, would show, we felt no doubt that we were on very strong ground. In these circumstances, I was rather surprised that the American Government, in the note in question, had expressed their amazement at our contentions, and had concluded by a sentence which, though correct in form, indicated, by implication, that in the solution of this question the continuance of the good relations between the two Powers was involved. This seemed to me. I said, very strong and rather unusual language to employ in connection with a matter of manifestly secondary importance, which ought to be disposed of without raising the larger issues of comity between our countries.
I went on to say that I thought it my duty to inform Mr. Butler Wright that we had information as to the manner in which the American contract of the Federal Telegraph Company had been procured at Peking, which, though it had not affected the argument contained in our reply and was not even mentioned in the letter, could not fail, to some extent, to colour our opinion as to the nature of the transaction which we were passing under review. Our information, which had come from the highest source, namely, the British Minister at Peking himself, was to the effect that, while an American gentleman had failed to secure a similar contract from the Chinese Government because be had declined to pay more than 100,000 dollars commission, the successful competitor, whose name was Mr. Barnes Moss, had succeeded in obtaining the contract by the payment to the Chinese Minister of Communications and the Chinese Director-General of Telegraphs of no less a sum than 800,000 Mexican dollars, which is equivalent to more than 80,0001. at the present rate of exchange.
Mr. Butler Wright said that he had never heard the name of Mr. Barnes Moss, and was wholly in ignorance of this transaction.
To this I replied that this had rendered it all the more necessary that, if from no one else, he should learn it from me.
I then went on to say that, in view of the fact that in the realm of Chinese finance we had recently found no difficulty, after a long and friendly discussion, in coming to an agreement of the Great Powers embodied in the consortium, it seemed to me a deplorable thing that the Great Powers should be squabbling with each other about such a matter as wireless telegraph concessions, when it ought to be quite possible, by methods of conference and co-operation, to avoid international competition altogether and to provide for some amalgamation of interests on an international basis. The Chinese Government was in a miserably weak condition, and turned without seruple or Compunction first to one Power and then to the other, in the effort to extract the maximum advantage for herself, while, if the Powers fell out, she was all the more pleased.
I hoped he would convey to his Government that, in my judgment, this was not the way in which such matters ought to be settled, and that a better method should be devised.
The American Chargé d'Affaires, who has always been most sympathetic and
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